Greta Van Susteren Slimes CNN, Feels "Sorry For Them"

Update: A CNN spokesperson responds, “You would think anyone commenting on the finances or marketing budget of CNN would have at least an elementary understanding of our business. CNN is enjoying its 6th straight year of profit growth and is, again, on track to deliver record earnings in 2009. As for being #1: CNN continues to have a larger audience on TV and the Web combined than Fox News or any other network.”

Earlier: Greta Van Susteren eviscerated CNN on her Fox News-hosted blog, beginning: “Have you seen CNN’s new ad campaign? It must be costing a fortune. Why are they spending all this money this way?”

It gets uglier:

So why do I feel bad (almost) for CNN? Because I have friends there…friends who now whisper to me everytime they see me, “What do you think is going on here? The place feels awful…it is dying.”

I worry about them. I want my friends to have jobs. Don’t get me wrong I want to continue to win, but not to the extent their place goes belly up and my friends lose jobs. You should hear what is being said inside CNN. It is really bad when the employees start whispering like that…and whispering and emailing the competition. They have some really good hardworking and journalists at CNN who I know well and like very much. I think our direct competition at 10pm – Cooper – is a smart person and a nice guy. But something is going very wrong over there…they obviously feel a need to do something.

A representative for Turner Broadcasting System, which operates CNN, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The network, which is lagging behind Fox News in the ratings, is running new online ads with the tagline, “More people turn to CNN because journalism matters.”